LITMIR.BIZ

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out of Willy’s teeth!”

      “I call dibs! On Baden, not the retainer. If my man ever kicks it, I get to hook up with Hulk-smash first!”

      In the back of his mind, he knew his friends and their mates had heard the commotion and come running, intending to break up the fight. To help him. The beast didn’t care.

      Kill...kill them all...they’re too strong, too much of a risk.

      Evil like the beast had no friends, only enemies.

      The group is dangerous to the rest of the world, but not to me. Never to me. These people would die for me.

      Die...yes, they must die...

      William kicked the door closed, blocking the others from Baden’s view. “You focus on me, Red. Understood? I’m the biggest threat, so do us both a favor, take your arthritis medication and hit me.”

      Yes. Biggest threat. Hit. Rage gave him added strength as he unleashed a new stream of punches. William blocked the first few, but couldn’t dodge the others. Baden failed to dodge his retaliation.

      The brutal fight propelled them around the room, bouncing off walls and furniture as if they were animals in the wild, vying for position of King of the Jungle.

      Pick up another piece of glass. Cut through the warrior’s ribs.

      Yes. The perfect finish. But as Baden swooped down, William flashed behind him—moving to a new location with only a thought—and punched him. He twisted as he stumbled, capturing the male’s hand when he attempted to deliver another strike.

      Baden purposely dropped, sinking to the floor, taking William with him. Midway down, he wound his legs around the bastard’s neck, applying enough pressure to choke a rhino. The moment they crash-landed, Baden tossed William over his head.

      Thud. His opponent smashed face-first into the pile of glass shards. He grinned and drew himself up to straddle Willy’s back.

      Punch. Punch. William’s skull cracked—and cracked Baden’s knuckles. Before he could deliver his next blow, the low-down-dirty-sneak flashed again—but it was too late to halt his fist. Punch. A wood panel on the floor splintered. Pain vibrated up his arm and pooled in his shoulder.

      William laughed with delight and, as if the sound opened a magical portal to calm, the beast quieted.

      “There.” Willy ruffled Baden’s hair. “You feel better now.” A kind statement rather than a smug question.

      He performed a danger-check, just to be sure, and nodded. “I do.” Even his throat had healed.

      “Now we can have a conversation without you eyeing my trachea like it’s a gummy worm.”

      “Conversation can wait.” He stood, grimacing as he noted the condition of his room. Holes in the wall, broken glass on the floor, furniture overturned and missing pieces. “I’ve got some cleaning to do.”

      “You’d choose a broom over information?”

      “Depends on the information being offered.”

      “If I said the serpentine wreaths and their side effects...?”

      “I’d turn your pretty face to pulp.” Baden loved the wreaths, but he also hated them. They were a gift from Hades, ancient and mystical, and they were responsible for his corporeal form.

      Hades and Keeley—the mate of Baden’s friend Torin—had come to him in what he’d thought was a dream. Through some kind of supernatural power, they’d removed the bands Lucifer, his jailer at the time, had forced on him and replaced them with bands that belonged to Hades.

      As long as you wear my wreaths, Hades had said, you will be seen...touched.

      The friendly gesture of an ally he supported in the war of the underworlds? He’d thought so in the beginning. Now he wondered... The trick of an underhanded foe?

      Soon after Baden had donned the gift, William had looked at him with pity and said, “Have you seen Pet Sematary? Sometimes dead is better.”

      William wasn’t wrong.

      By that point, Baden had already begun to change. Not physically—maybe physically—but definitely mentally. Once even-tempered, he struggled for control, and he despised anyone who might be stronger than him. As proved. Memories plagued him, but they weren’t his own. They couldn’t be. He’d never been a child, had been created fully formed, an immortal soldier tasked with protecting Zeus, and yet he clearly remembered being around ten years old, running through an ambrosia field set aflame, thick smoke choking him.

      A pack of hellhounds tracked him, fed on him and dragged him into a cold, dank dungeon, where he’d suffered, alone and starved, for centuries.

      With the first memory, a horrifying truth had struck Baden. The wreaths weren’t just an object, but a being. The beast. Not a demon, but worse. An immortal who’d once lived and now expected to continue living through Baden. A monster who always teetered on the brink of rage, violence and distrust.

      The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Baden.

      “Well.” William pretended to be offended. “Try to do a man a favor.”

      Concentrate! “Yesterday you said you knew nothing about the wreaths.”

      A hike of his broad shoulders. “That was yesterday.”

      “And today you know...what, exactly?”

      “Only everything.”

      He waited for the warrior to say more. “Do you require another beating? Tell me!”

      “Beating is too strong a word for what transpired. I’d go with massage.” William buffed his nails. “Just so you know, the wreaths’ side effects are numerous and horrifying.”

      “I figured the horrifying part out on my own, thanks.” Removing the wreaths wasn’t an option. They were fused to him, and he would have to amputate his arms with a meat cleaver.

      Before his death, his arms would have grown back. Now? He wasn’t sure and wasn’t willing to experiment. Well, not on himself. His hands were his first line of defense.

      “Give me specifics,” he demanded.

      “For starters, if you want to keep your new temper tantrums at bay, you’ll need sex and a lot of it.”

      The pronouncement was a joke. Had to be.

      Baden arched a brow. “You offering, oh great and randy one?”

      William snorted. “As if you could handle me.”

      To be honest, he couldn’t handle anyone. When he wasn’t fighting, he avoided any kind of contact, the sensitivity of his skin too great. Every brush of flesh against flesh was excruciating, like a dagger being raked across exposed nerve endings.

      “You’re going to leave Budapest today,” William said. “You’ll go...somewhere else. You’ll collect a harem of immortal women, and you’ll spend the next decade or two concerned only with pleasure.”

      Leave his friends? After they’d only just been reunited? No. He was here to help them, to guard their backs the way he’d longed to do for centuries. “I’m going to pass.”

      “And I’m going to insist. You can’t beat the darkness.”

      “I am the darkness.”

      The warrior canted his head in agreement. “Here’s the rub. Maddox and Ashlyn have children. Both Gideon and Kane have a pregnant wife. Not to mention the other females living in the house. And what about the traumatized Legion? The vulnerable Gillian?” His voice roughened with her name. “You go after any of the females the way you went after me, and your brothers-by-choice will gut you. No matter how much they love you. I will gut you.”

      “I would never—”

      “Oh,

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